Stephen Raymond Stubbs, the Canberra criminal solicitor who was found guilty last year of fraud, was jailed in the 1970s for dishonesty offences, a court has heard.
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Stubbs, 63, faced a sentencing hearing in the ACT Supreme Court on Tuesday, after a jury found him guilty on December 15 of 14 counts of dishonestly obtaining property by deception.
Over the course of about a year in 2008 and 2009, Stubbs had demanded money for legal work from both a client's mother, Anne Duffy, and Legal Aid ACT, a legal funding service for socially or economically disadvantaged people. The total amounts he was found guilty of dishonestly taking were $25,000 and $4,000 respectively.
Stubbs did not deny taking the money. The prosecution had argued he was dishonest because he told both parties the other was not contributing to the defence of Alexander Duffy - who was facing a serious charge of conspiracy to commit murder.
In a victim impact statement read by the prosecutor on Tuesday, Ms Duffy described Stubbs' crimes as "the cruelest of all betrayals".
"At every turn Stephen Stubbs told me how good he was, so I started to trust him," the statement read. "Now I find I do not trust anyone."
On Stubbs' criminal history, prosecutor Katrina Mackenzie said that in 1974 in Sydney, Stubbs was convicted of two dishonesty crimes and jailed for two years, with a non-parole period of seven months.
She suggested that while the offences against Legal Aid and Ms Duffy were not overly sophisticated, they involved a degree of planning.
Stubbs was trusted by Ms Duffy because he was a lawyer, Ms Mackenzie said, and he "took advantage of his role".
In mitigation, Stubbs' defence barrister John Masters distinguished the man's crimes from the kind of offences that arose from the legal relationship of lawyer and client and a breach of trust.
He said there was no risk Stubbs would go on to work as a lawyer because he had ceased practicing, had no intention to practice again, and would likely not be able to return to law even if he wanted.
It emerged in court that since Stubbs was found guilty, he had paid all but about $700 of the $25,000 he had taken from Legal Aid and Ms Duffy into the court to be returned to the parties.
When Mr Masters sought to hand up to the judge medical reports on Stubbs' health, the prosecution objected.
It is not disputed that Stubbs has had heart attacks. But the prosecution has questioned reports of doctors where they made conclusions based on Stubbs' own claims of ongoing problems.
Reports by doctors, including a neurologist, relied on by the defence had opined Stubbs had some memory and neurological deficits. In one report Stubbs was said to be "quite disabled".
In another report, tendered by the prosecution, a doctor had written that despite testing, including an MRI, he could find little to explain Stubbs' complaints.
Justice John Burns agreed to accept all the medical reports but would limit their use, where medical opinions were made on the basis of Stubbs' own assertions of his symptoms.
The maximum penalty for each fraud offence is 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of $140,000.
Mr Masters asked Justice Burns to consider punishment other than full time imprisonment, such as a suspended sentence, or fines. Ms Mackenzie said full time imprisonment was, in the circumstances, the appropriate punishment.
Stubbs is currently free on bail.
The matter is due to return on March 2, when Justice Burns will hand down a sentence.
